Six Confirmed for Bellator Season 4 Welterweight Tourney

Though still without a formal start date, Bellator Fighting
Championships’ upcoming fourth season now has six official
competitors for its eight-man welterweight tournament. Dan
Hornbuckle, Steve Carl,
Brent
Weedman, Chris
Lozano, Jim
Wallhead and Rick Hawn were
all confirmed as participants by the promotion during Thursday’s
live Fox Sports Net broadcast.

Hawn, who trains under Mark DellaGrotte at the Boston-area Team
Sityodtong, became the newest addition to the field on Thursday
when he notched a first-round TKO victory over LeVon
Maynard in his Bellator debut. The former U.S. Olympic judoka
executed a flawless throw using his native skill set, and then
followed up with some precision hammerfists to move his unbeaten
record to 9-0.

Another fighter with a judo background, Wallhead secured his spot
in the tournament with a unanimous decision win over Ryan Thomas
on Bellator’s Oct. 14 show.

The season two welterweight runner-up, Hornbuckle had a six-fight
win streak snapped by current Bellator champ Ben Askren in
the tournament finals in June. He went on to defeat UFC vet “Bad”
Brad
Blackburn two months later.

Carl, Lozano and Weedman, meanwhile, each won qualifier bouts
during the course of Bellator’s third season to earn their
respective ways into the bracket.

Though not officially announced by the promotion, Bellator CEO
Bjorn Rebney told Sherdog.com earlier this month that the loser of
Thursday’s Ben Askren-Lyman Good
title fight would likely be slotted into the season four
tournament, as well. Having come up on the short end of a
five-round unanimous decision, it remains to be seen if the
now-former champion Good will try to restart his ascent from the
bottom of the ladder.